Social Marketing Basics
Nancy Hoddinott
Manager, Social Marketing
NS Health Promotion
Objectives
• Introduce social marketing concepts
• Review steps in developing a social
marketing plan
• Apply social marketing concepts
• Have fun
Agenda
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•
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What is social marketing?
Steps in social marketing plan
Lunch (12:15)
Applying the concepts
Wrap-up/Evaluation (3:30)
What is social marketing?
“Sounds like you’re running a dating
service……”
Dept. of Health employee
What is social marketing?
• Use of marketing principles and techniques
to influence a target audience to voluntarily
accept, reject, modify, or abandon a
behaviour for the benefit of individuals,
groups, or society as a whole.
Kotler et al., 2002
Framework
• Multidisciplinary and complementary
strategies are required to change behaviour
• Research based (audience-centered)
• Long-term
• Monitoring and evaluation
What is social marketing?
Uses traditional marketing principles and techniques:
• Focuses on the consumer (audience-centered)
• Marketing research
• Segmentation
• Defined objectives/goals
• Exchange theory – perceived benefits costs
• Marketing mix – product, price, place,
promotion
• Evaluation
What is different from commercial
sector marketing?
• Product sold: goods and services vs.
behaviour change
• Goal: financial gain vs. individual/societal
gain
• Competition: other organisations offering
similar goods vs. current or preferred
behaviour
Social marketing is not…….
• just advertising
• just communications
• an image campaign
• ‘expert’ driven
• done in a vacuum
• a quick process
Steps in Social Marketing Plan
Where are we?
Where do we want to go?
How will we get there?
How will we stay on track?
Steps in Social Marketing Plan
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Define the problem
Select and analyse target audience
Set objectives, goals
Product, price, place, promotion
Evaluation plan
Implementation plan
Step 1 – Define the Problem
• Review data sources, literature
• Determine campaign purpose
– What actions/behaviour change could reduce the
problem)
– Who must act to solve the problem?
• SWOT analysis
• Review current and past efforts
Step 2 – Select/Analyze target
audience
• Formative research
• Collect and analyze demographic,
socioeconomic, cultural, behavioural data on
target audience
• Segment audience
• Select target audience(s) - size, reachability,
readiness
Step 2 – Select/Analyze target
audience
• Competition
– Current knowledge, beliefs and behaviours
– Perceived benefits and barriers to action
Step 3 – Set goals and objectives
• What do you want audience to do
– Will achieving this goal impact the problem?
• Behavioural objectives, quantifiable
– Feasible?
Step 4 – Apply Marketing Principles
• Product
– Behaviour, service being exchanged with audience for a price and benefit
– Must compete successfully against benefit of current behaviour
– Fun, easy, popular
• Price
– Cost to the target audience of changing (financial, time, effort, lifestyle,
etc.)
• Place
– Channels where products, programs are available
– Make accessible, move programs/products to places audience frequents
• Promotion
– Communication with audience about product/program, price and place
– Advertising, media relations, events, direct mail, entertainment, personal
selling
5th ‘P’
• Politics
– Stimulate policy that influences voluntary
behaviour change (system and environmental
change)
Step 6 – Evaluation Plan
• Based on goals and objectives
• What will be measured
– Process (assessment of campaign elements and
execution)
– Outcome (impact)
• How it will be measured
• When will it be measured
• How results will be reported
Step 7 – Implementation Plan
• Who will do what, when, how (how much)
Elements of successful campaigns
(Kotler et al., 2002)
• Use what has been done before
• Start with target group most ready for action
• Promote single, doable behaviour (clear, simple
terms)
• Promote a service to support the behaviour
• Address perceived benefits and costs
• Make access easy
Elements of successful campaigns
• Develop attention-getting, motivational
messages
• Use appropriate media (exploit audience
participation)
• Make it easy and convenient for action (fun,
easy, popular)
• Allocate resources for effective reach
• Allocate resources for research
• Track results, adjust
Change Objectives
• Think of your organisation, identify an issue
you are trying to resolve/change.
– Develop a campaign purpose
• Translate success over the next three years:
– Key audiences (internal, external, partners)
– Concrete behaviours, actions, decisions that
each would adopt
Change Objectives
Target Audience
F. Lagarde, 2004
What you want them to do
Audience Analysis & Segmentation
• Choose most important audience
• Analyse those who have adopted the behaviour and
those who have not
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Demographic data
Needs, benefits
Barriers
Influencers
Media habits
Membership
Segmentation
Implications (Product, Price, Place,
Promotion)
• New or improved offering (behaviour,
product, service) to make it more attractive
(benefits) and easy (barriers)
• Ways of making it less costly or time
consuming
• Ways to reduce barriers and improve access
• Messages, channels, messengers
F. Lagarde, 2004
References
• Kotler, P., Roberto, N, Lee, N. 2002. Social Marketing: Improving the
Quality of Life. Thousand Oaks,CA:Sage Productions Inc.
• Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative. The Manager’s Guide
to Social Marketing.
• Lagarde, F. 2004. Worksheets to Introduce Some Basic Concepts of Social
Marketing Practices. Social Marketing Quarterly, 10(1).